Southern unionists appeal to King George V
Warn of imminent danger of civil war
Southern Irish unionists have warned the British government that there will be civil war in Ireland if the Home Rule Bill is signed into law and that it will result in ruinous consequences for the nation.
The warning came as the Irish Unionist Alliance petitioned King George V ‘on behalf of Irishmen of all creeds and classes, your Majesty’s subjects in the provinces of Leinster, Munster and Connaught'. Led by its president, Lord Barrymore, the Irish Unionist Alliance has called for a general election as an immediate priority.
The Alliance is drawn from southern unionists and stated that the idea of Home Rule is ‘abhorrent, not only to the people of Ulster, but to the great numbers in the Southern provinces, for whom we speak’.
A resolution, dated 17 April 1914, from the Co. Clare Unionist Club stating that when the Home Rule Bill is passed Unionists will be attacked. It calls for a military garrison to be established in the county for their protection. Click on the image to enlarge. (Image: National Archives of Ireland, CSO RP 1914/6618)
The petition continued: ‘We are convinced that the present Bill, if forced upon us, can never prove the foundation of such a settlement as your Majesty ardently desires, but that, on the contrary, it will produce a rankling sense of injustice which will create bitter animosity and entail grave difficulties for the Empire in the future.’
As well as Lord Barrymore, leading members of the aristocracy such as the Earl of Rosse in King’s County and Lord Inchiquin in Co. Clare have signed the petition.
Branches of the Alliance are active in at least 30 centres across the provinces of Munster, Leinster and Connaught.
In the petition to the King, they conclude, ‘speaking with intimate knowledge of their county’, they have the ‘gravest reason to apprehend that on the outbreak of civil war the lives and property of many of Your Majesty’s subjects dwelling in isolated parts of Ireland will be exposed to the greatest danger’.
